The Banner Saga is a tactical RPG by Stoic games who consist of former staff of the western RPG studio Bioware. It’s a game inspired by other titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem. It’s setting is inspired by Norse Folklore and Mythologies ans is filled to the brim with interesting lore. People who like not only a good and deep Strategy RPG but also like to make story altering decisions should definitely check this one out.
The gods are dead.
The game starts of with a text crawl explaining the history of the world the player is dropped in. The gods who created and govern all have perished, and now all living creatures are without guidance when the sun stops moving. Night never arrives and days, weeks and maybe even years lose all meaning. On top of what seems to be the end of the world humanity and a race of all male giants called Varl are being hunted again by a race called the Dredge. There is a lot of history in this world and a big part of it get’s explained in time, but mystery is a huge element of what makes this world so interesting. You play mainly as an archer named Rook. After his small village get’s attacked and the village chief perishes, Rook involuntarily becomes the leader of the village who now is roaming the land looking for a new place to call home. During your travels you will see amazing landscapes and meet interesting characters. The story is great but does a bad job of introducing its lore to the player. It throws a lot of terms, names and races at players that information overload will eventually occur. However once everything is figured out and the player is able to follow what is going on, The Banner Saga shows of its great narrative and characters. The writing is for the most part top-notch and has a “boorish elegance” to it. Characters converse in a fairly real yet romanticized way but also do tend to throw around obscenities. It makes the characters feel intelligent yet down to earth and everyday. The Banner Saga tells a great story but more importantly does so trough some amazing Dialogue and descriptions of its world and the situations the characters are in.
The dialogue is expertly written and every choice you make has some impact on the narrative.
Life goes on.
The Banner Saga is a Tactical Role Playing Game much like the Fire Emblem or X-com series combined with some small elements of The Oregon Trail. The player travels from one point to another coming across encounters with the Dredge, bandits and refugees. Being the leader of the convoy you have to solve problems that arise between clans-members or allow other travelers to tag along with your troupe. Every decision will have some consequences at some point. Allowing a group of farmers who lost their home join you can either result in the convoy obtaining more livestock increasing the chance of survival. Or those same farmers might just disappear one night with a considerable amount of food supplies. Making tough decisions is a huge part of the game and as would be the case in real life a lot of decisions will be made based on your gut feeling, or the facts given to you. Letting a bunch of starving mothers tag along might be a bad idea instead of letting a few on the run criminals into the group. It’s never really clear which is the right choice until something happens weeks later. When these moments happen during the main story segment players can actively lose units if you make the wrong decision. The Banner Saga asks the player to trust people on either facts or their gut, and both might come back to make the player regret choosing either. Sometimes things aren’t as grey tough as players might run into bandits or the Dredge. When large-scale combat is inevitable the player must choose what the best strategy is to make sure the least amount of lives are lost. Players can choose to charge which might make the actual battle harder but potentially could save more lives. While holding the line might make things easier on the battlefield but will cost you more fighters in the end. When players have to engage in combat they select up to five characters which will be put on a board. The goal consists of defeating all enemies on the board. When it’s your units turn you choose where you want your unit to go and depending on the location your unit can choose to either attack the enemies health or armor. The higher the armor is the lower damage you do to the unit and chipping away the armor will allow you to do more damage. The player can also make use of the Willpower mechanic to do several things like increase the range of movement of that unit, or increase damage. All characters’ strength is coupled with their vitality meaning that their attack power diminishes the more their life goes down. It’s a great mechanic that manages to convey the idea that the more your character gets damaged less they can fight back. Aside from these mechanics The Banner Saga has all the Stratgegy-RPG elements that can be found in other strategy RPGs. The banner Saga has complex and engaging Strategy mechanics and manages to make every choice matter.
The combat is on a smaller scale than other games in the genre but it certainly doesn’t lack depth.
Only one thing has stopped. The sun
The Banner Saga is beautifully animated. The style is very reminiscent to Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of The Rings with some Game of Thrones influences. Aside from that the style, design and lore is all based on Norse Mythologies. Locations,races and character names are all Norse and even in lyrics and spoken dialogue at the start of the game is Norse. It looks gorgeous and feels very unique. The music as mentioned before also nails the Nordic theme. Music is used rarely and is meant to accentuate the scenes they are in. The times where no music is played also helps the feeling that the world is without the guidance of their deities. Animation is fluent and backgrounds are crafted with amazing care and are absolutely gorgeous. The Banner saga nails it’s presentation and feels very fresh and unique.
Every location is gorgeously drawn, and characters are beautifully animated.
| The good: | The bad: |
| +gorgeous game | -UI can be a bit of a mess sometimes |
| +great narrative choices | -throws too much lore at the player from the start |
| +deep strategy system |
The Banner Saga is an amazing game. The strategy elements are deep and complex, the narrative and writing are top-notch and the decisions you make all have serious consequences. Its amazing design is only rivaled by its colorful and engaging art style. The Banner Saga manages to make the world feel bleak and dying yet serene and peaceful. Most characters are fleshed out and interesting and make the decisions you make it that much more impactful if they die or even turn against you because of it. The Banner Saga is an amazing strategy game that fans of the genre owe it to themselves to play.
4,5 out of 5:
Xbox One:
The console version of The Banner Saga relatively the same. However some parts of the game are rather sloppily converted. Such as when the caravan stays at a village instead of using the d-pad to select a building you either use the bumpers or when using the control stick the PC cursor appears on the screen for you to use. It’s nothing game breaking or anything but it’s certainly is weird why they didn’t just make some of the control options fit more for a controller. The Banner Saga feels right at home on a tablet followed by the PC. The console version is almost as suitable as the other platforms but the what the game is designed makes it a prefect fit for tablets and PC’s.
